Type: Data archiving
Runtime: 1996 -
Coordination: Horst Bornemann, Joachim Plötz Alfred Wegener Institute
Data curator: Horst Bornemann, Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven
MMT data sets, archived in the data library PANGAEA®
The Marine Mammal Tracking (MMT) project of AWI and its Partner Institutions
concentrates on the Southern Ocean. Long-distance tracking of marine mammals
in the Southern Ocean by satellite relies on the ARGOS system. ARGOS
satellite transmitters for marine mammal applications are designed to
provide the animals' at-sea locations. Some types of transmitters are
combined with archival data logging units to provide high-quality
behavioural data on diving and feeding activity, optionally collected in
tandem with data on environmental variables at the animals' immediate
position.
Marine top predators including seals and birds have the ability to detect areas of high food abundance. Ocean fronts, eddies and shifting sea ice facilitate areas of high biological productivity where intermediate and upper trophic level interactions maximise. These conditions attract top predators which concentrate their foraging on lucrative feeding spots. Variations in foraging ranges and movements of top predators are hence an important source of information about environmental variability integrated over a wide range of spatial and temporal scales.
Although MMT is dedicated primarily to marine mammals, the project is in
liaison with other top predator studies. Thus data of penguins equipped with
satellite or archival tags are incorporated as well. The complex synthesis
of data on marine mammal positioning and feeding locations with oceanography
and bathymetry aims to identify those parameters which are characteristic
for feeding areas of top predators in the respective regions, and will
provide clues as to why some areas of the Antarctic Ocean are important to
these animals while others are not. This will further our understanding of
the distribution patterns of marine mammals in Antarctic and Subantarctic
marine ecosystems of the Southern Ocean.
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